The Things We Do For Love

Love. It’ll make you do crazy things. Like, spell out your crush’s name in alphabet soup and text them a picture of it. Maybe hide little love notes in the Sunday classifieds. Or, if you’re really in love, cut off your beloved’s head in front of a school full of people fully not intending to be covered in neck juices today.

I read a lot of headlines when trying to come up with what I’m going to write about in a given day. Here at Van Full of Candy we do an article a day, rain or shine, every week day, without fail. That’s our promise, to you, the viewer. Sometimes the news is boring and it’s difficult to choose what to write about. I personally can only scream about my distrust of space and my legally frowned upon love of Justin Bieber so many times before I start attracting unwanted attention from swarthy, beautiful, Bieber Saucers from beyond the stars. And not again I say.

But scanning the news this afternoon I came upon this story: apparently a man in India beheaded a woman as she was leaving her classroom Wednesday.

“I am GOD here, my cud is final!”

Now, before we get into this, let me just say that I am in no way making light of the loss of life here. This is a horrible thing, without question and this lunatic should be dealt with in the most severe way that Indian courts allow. Which I assume is to feed him to a cow, if I understand my Indian culture correctly, which I almost certainly do not. Now with that out of the way, let me get back to the hahas.

The headline calls this man “lovesick”, which I can only assume is the nicest possible way the AP copy editor can phrase “batshit insane”. Apparently his main, discernible motivation, according to the police was that he so loved this woman that he had by now brutally murdered in one of the most violent and deliberate ways which one can murder another individual, but her parents would not allow them to marry. So naturally, he had to Highlander her. I don’t think you can in good conscience call a guy who bisects his love interest’s head from their body “lovesick” unless while in prison he is clinically diagnosed with a love sickness which causes the infected individual to believe that the removal of vital segments of the human body is the ultimate expression of emotional love for another not long living individual. So how about we not cutesy it up, ay Associated Press?

When flowers just won’t do, say “I love you” with a Khykri.

Elsewhere in the brief article the “writer” goes on to say that the swordsman was arrested “on suspicion” of killing the victim and that he “allegedly” attacked her with a ceremonial curved weapon called a khykri. Now, I understand that in America we have to use certain words when describing the actions and perpetrator of said actions because of how our news media and justice system like to fuck with each other. But when you have a gentleman, holding a sword, next to a body with a now detached head that, in all likely hood, did not have that as a standard feature moments before, surrounded by blood soaked students, holding onto this lunatic until police could arrive, and who is now explaining to the police that he had ALSO intended to kill himself, I think it’s fairly safe to drop any sort of lingering suspicion as to whether or not he’s responsible for the untimely weight loss of the student at our feet.

But along with these questions I have of the lax hiring practices at the Associated Press, when I read something like this, I can’t help but have dozens of other, admittedly sort of morbid, but still I think valid questions, come to mind. How, for instance, this guy was just able to waltz onto this campus, what ever size it was, with a ceremonial knife and slicin’ on his mind. I realize this isn’t metal detector high school like we have here in America, but still, a guy with a special blade should draw some kind of attention. Or how this guy running around the halls with a commemorative sword was able to walk right up to this woman and just take her head for a ride BEFORE anyone thought it might be a good idea to make sure she was expecting a meeting between her throat and his simitar. OR, and this is the biggie, as the story simply says “Authorities say the blade sliced her head off and she died instantly” how the fuck the particulars of this case exactly went down. When I think beheading I think of a long drawn out process involving a sawing like motion. I don’t generally think Kill Bill style, slow motion mid air head flipping following one swift, dramatic stroke. Granted, I haven’t seen a lot of beheadings lately, so maybe I’m not the expect on how tenaciously the spine clings to the brain stem, but I expected those bones in our neck were there for more than just show.

You know what, I don’t know what to think about any of this or even why I think it. I just know that clearly, I’ve never truly loved in what I generously call my “life” because not once have I ever entertained the thought of making something six inches shorter because I was told I couldn’t have it… Maybe I just don’t know how to love hard enough.